Cuba Overtakes USA/CUBA SUPERA USA

Cuba Overtakes USA

by Fidel Castro

Despot Fidel Castro promised half a century ago that Cuba would be wealthier than America, leading in milk, petrol, citrus fruits, sugar, productivity, conglomerate wood, honey, agroindustry, meat, coffee, bananas, pineapples. Cuba pre-Castro was the third wealthiest in Latin America after Argentina and Venezuela and today is 13th, and 108th in the world.

1. “I am fully confident that in the course of a few short years we will raise the standard of living of Cubans above that of the U.S. and Russia” 16/02/1959.

2. “In 1970 the island will have 5,000 experts in the livestock industry and about 8 million cows and calves producing milk. There will be so much milk that we will be able to fill the bay of Havanna with it” 23/8/1966.

3. “Cuba in a short time will become an oil exporting country” 18.6.2008.

4. “If Florida has been able to develop a citrus industry in a land worse than ours, there is no doubt that we will have a citrus industry superior to that in Florida. There’s absolutely no doubt ” 8/6/1968.

5. “Everyone is alreday aware that responsibility, knowledge and organization are clearly visible everywhere in our country. Without any doubt these will lead to even greater successes because the same way we achieved those 6 million tons of sugar, there is no doubt that we will reach 10 million in 1970 ” 7/6/1965.

6. “We have to raise year by year the yield of the sugar-cane plantations, because Cuba is among the last countries in production of sugar-cane per hectare, although in sugar yield we are among the first. Backward agriculture without the technology or fertilizers result in a really low average production per load ” 26/7/1968.

7. “We shall develop at the same time the sucrochemical industry by using bagasse for pulp, and together with the reforestation plans underway, in future we will be able to mix bagasse pulp and wood pulp and have another tremendous line of exports” 7/6/1965.

8. “It won’t be the 10 million tons of sugar, but the nearly 4 million tons of honey that will permit the parallel development of livestock fed with honey which will let us become meat exporters” 7/6/1965.

9. “Our agriculture will be considerably developed by 1970, and the main thrust of our country will not be solely basic industries such as cement, electricity and others, rather the decade from 1970 to 1980 will be the decade of industrial facilities to manipulate agricultural products developed to meet all the needs of a growing modern society” 2/1/1968.

10. “Sugar is our main crop and anyone who wants any one of our best varieties of sugar must come to Cuba. Our livestock is being developed and we have no doubt that in the course of a few years we will have some of the best livestock in the world, because we do not fear competition of any kind. We will also become major producers of beef for world markets, both in quantity and quality. We will be major producers of tropical crops, and in citrus fruits we will be ranked among the first countries in the world, and the same will happen with coffee, with the banana fruit and with pineapple” 2/1/1968.